Controversial Issues

AN OPEN PARTY AND THE MARXISTS

IV. THE CLASS SIGNIFICANCE OF LIQUIDATIONISM

Inthe preceding articles (PravdaNos. 289, 299 and 314) we
showed that all the Marxists, both in 1908 and in 1910, irrevocably
condemned liquidationism as renunciation of the past. The Marxists
explained to the working class that liquidationism is the spreading of
bourgeois influence among the proletariat. Andallthe
liquidationist publications, from 1909 up to 1913, have flagrantly violated
the decisions of the Marxists.

Letus consider the slogan, an “open workers’ party”, or “a struggle
for an open party”, which the liquidators are still advocating inLuckandNasha Zarya.

Isthis a Marxist, proletarian slogan, or a liberal, bourgeois slogan?

Theanswer must be sought not in the attitude or plans of the
liquidators or of other groups, but in an analysis of the relation of
social forces in Russia in the present period. The significance of slogans
is determined not by the intentions of their authors, but by the relation
of forces ofallthe classes in the country.

Thefeudal-minded land owners andtheir“bureaucracy” are
hostile to all changes making for political liberty. This is
understandable. The bourgeoisie, because of its economic position in a
backward and semi-feudal country,muststrive for freedom. But the
bourgeoisie fears the activity of the peoplemorethan it fears
reaction. This truth was demonstrated with particular clarity in 1905; it
is fully under stood by the working class, but not by opportunist and
semi-liberal intellectuals.

Thebourgeoisie are both liberal and counter-revolutionary. Hence their
ridiculously impotent and wretchedreformism. They dream of
reforms and fear to settle accounts in real earnest with the feudal-minded
landowners who not only refuse to grant reforms, but even withdraw those
already granted. They preach reforms and fear the popular movement. They
strive to oust the landowners, but fear to losetheirsupport and
fear to losetheir ownprivileges. It is upon this relation of
classes that the June Third system has been built up, which gives unlimited
power to the feudal landowners and privileges to the bourgeoisie.

Theclass position of the proletariat makes it altogether impossible
for it to “share” privileges orbe afraidof anyone losing
them. That is why selfishly narrow, miserable and dull-witted reformism is
quite foreign to the proletariat. As to the peasant masses—on the one
hand they are immeasurably oppressed, and instead of enjoying privileges
suffer from starvation; on the other hand, they are undoubtedly petty
bourgeois—hence, they inevitably vacillate between the liberals and the
workers.

Suchis the objective situation.

Fromthis situation it clearly follows that the slogan of an open
working-class party is, in its class origin, a slogan of the
counter-revolutionary liberals. It contains nothing save reformism; it does
not contain even a hint that the proletariat, the only thoroughly
democratic class, is conscious that its task is one of fighting the
liberals for influence over democrats as a whole; there is not even a
suggestion of removing the foundation of all the privileges of the
feudal-minded landowners, of the “bureaucracy”, etc.; there is not a
thought of the general basis of political liberty or of a democratic
Constitution; instead, this slogan implies the tacit renunciation of the
old, and consequently, renegacy and the dissolution (liquidation) of the
workers’ party.

Inbrief. In a period of counter-revolution this slogan spreads among
the workers theadvocacy of the very thingthe liberal bourgeoisie
are themselvespractising. Therefore, had there been no
liquidators, the clever bourgeois Progressists would havehadto
find, or hire, intellectuals to advocate this to the working class!

Onlythe foolish people will seek to compare thewordsof the
liquidators with theirmotives. Theirwordsmust be
compared with thedeedsand the objective position of the liberal
bourgeoisie.

Lookat thesedeeds. In 1902, the bourgeoisie wasin
favourof the underground. It commissioned Struve to publish the
undergroundOsvobozhdeniye. When the working-class movement led to
October 17, the liberals and the Cadets abandoned the underground, then
repudiated it, and declared it to be useless, mad, sinful and godless
			  (Vekhi).[1]Instead ofthe underground, the liberal bourgeoisie favoured astruggle for an open party. This is an historical fact, confirmed
by the incessant attempts at legalisation made by the Cadets (1905–07) and
the Progressists (1913).

Amongthe Cadets we see “open work and its secret organisation”; the
kind-hearted, i.e., unwitting, liquidator,A. Vlasov, has only retold the deeds of the Cadets “in his own words”.

Whydid the liberals renounce the underground and adopt the slogan of
“a struggle for an open party”? Was it because Struve is a traitor? No,
just the opposite. Struve went over to the other side because the entire
bourgeoisie took a turn. And the bourgeoisie turned
(1) because it obtained privileges on December 11,
1905,[2]and even on June 3, 1907 obtained the status of atoleratedopposition;
(2) because it was it self mortally afraid of the popular movement. The
slogan of “a struggle for an open party”, translated from the language of
“high politics” into plain and intelligible language, means the
following:

“Landowners!Don’t imagine that we want to make life impossible for
you. No, just move up a little and make room for us bourgeois [an open
party 1, we shall then defend you five times more ’intelligently’,
ingenuously, ’scientifically’ than the Timoshkins and Sabler’s parsons
did.”[3]

Thepetty-bourgeois
Narodniks,[4]in imitation of the Cadets, took up the slogan of “a
struggle for an open party”. In August 1906, Messrs. Peshekhonov and
Co. ofRusskoye Bogatstvorenounced the underground, proclaimed
the “struggle for an open party”, and cut the consistently democratic
“underground” slogans out of their programme.

Thanksto their reformist chatter about a “broad and open party”,
these philistines have been left, as all can see,without anyparty,without anycontact with the masses, while the Cadets have
even stopped thinking of such contacts.

Onlyin this way, only by analysing the position of the classes, by
analysing the general history of the counter revolution, is it possible tounderstandthe nature of liquidationism. The liquidators are
petty-bourgeois intellectuals, sent by the bourgeoisie to sow liberal
corruption among the workers. The liquidators are traitors to Marxism and
traitors to democracy. The slogan of “a struggle for an open party” in
their case (as in the case of the liberals and the Narodniks) only serves
to camouflage their renunciation of the past and theirrupture with the
working class. This is a fact that has been proved both by the
elections in the worker curia for the Fourth Duma and by the history of the
founding of the workers’ paperPravda. It is obviousto all that contact with the masses has been maintained only by those who
have not renounced the past and who know how to make use of “open work”
and of all and sun dry “possibilities” exclusively in the spirit ofthatpast, and for the purpose of strengthening, consolidating and
developing it.

Inthe period of the June Third system it could not be otherwise.

“Curtailment”of the programme and tactics by the liquidators (i.e.,
liberals) will be discussed in our next article.

[1]Inthe symposiumMarxism and Liquidationismthe wordVekhiis omitted and the following footnote is given:

“Thereis a fine bookVekhiwhich has gone through numerous
editions and contains an excellent compilation of these ideas of
counter-revolutionary liberalism”.—Ed.

[2]Leninrefers to thelaw, promulgated onDecember 11 (24),
1905, on the convening of a “legislative” State Duma; the law was
promulgated by the tsarist government when the Moscow insurrection was at
its height. The First Duma, elected under this law, had a Cadet majority.

[3]By“Sabler’s parsons” Lenin means the orthodox priests who
were drawn into active participation in the election to the Fourth Duma on
instructions issued by the reactionary Sabler, Procurator General of the
Synod, to ensure the election of deputies amenable to the tsarist
government.

[4]Narodniks—supporters of Narodism, the petty-bourgeois trend
in the Russian revolutionary movement in the sixties to the eighties of the
last century. The Narodniks campaigned for the abolition of the autocracy
and the transfer of landed estates to the peasants. They denied that in
accordance with the regular laws of capitalism, capitalist relations and a
proletariat were developing in Russia and, as a consequence of this,
considered the peasantry to be the chief revolutionary force; they regarded
the village commune as an embryonic form of socialism. The Narodniks,
therefore, went out to the villages to arouse the peasants to struggle
against the autocracy. The Narodniks proceeded from a false premise on the
role of the class struggle in history, believing that history is made by
heroes, who are passively followed by the masses. The Narodniks adopted
terrorist tactics in their struggle against tsarism.

Inthe eighties and nineties of the nineteenth century the Narodniks
adopted a conciliatory policy towards tsarism, began to fight for the
interests of the kulaks and conducted a stubborn struggle against Marxism.